Moany can buy you love, but what is the best way to complain about something?

Mumble in paradise… TV show Jamaica Inn received thousands of complaints (Picture: BBC)

At some point today, someone will ask you how you are. You might well reply: ‘Oh, I can’t complain.’

But the truth is, if you try a little bit harder, you can complain. You can complain with the best of them. Because you live in Britain. And in Britain, complaining is a way of life. Isn’t it?

‘We’re a nation of moaners,’ said Jasper Griegson, author of The Complete Complainer: How to Complain and Get Results. ‘We moan amongst ourselves but what we don’t do is communicate very well. I don’t think we complain enough. There’s a big difference between complaining and whingeing.’

Simply known as ‘The Complainer’, Griegson estimates he has made more than 6,000 complaints to companies in the past 30 years. His grievances have seen benches installed at train stations, traffic lights changed and thousands of free gifts secured on behalf of his followers. He said the secret to complaining effectively was not to get angry, but to get funny.

‘Some people tend to be abusive and that’s not the right way to complain,’ he told Metro. ‘That’s the problem with social media – there’s a temptation for people to shoot from the hip. You should be humorous when you write, not offensive and aggressive.

‘You want to make your complaint very different to everybody else’s. I once wrote in the style of a blackmail letter because I cut all the letters out from a magazine, but actually it was a very polite letter to WH Smith. But it grabbed their attention.’

For Griegson, the chief weapon in the arsenal of a complainer is still the humble letter in an envelope. ‘An email is too transient, it’s too easy to delete,’ he said. ‘There’s still some power in hard copy.’

He has sent everything from grievances in the form of poems to complaints disguised as love letters (so the chief executive’s secretary won’t dare open it first) to some of Britain’s biggest companies.

‘Anybody can complain if they dare to defy authority,’ he said. ‘Barclays bank put £200 in my account by mistake and wrote me quite a stroppy letter asking for their money back, which I did, but I deducted £20 for my administrative charges. And that just felt so good.’

Banks are one of the big targets for formal complaints from Britons, but everything and anything is up for grabs, including entertainment. Last week, the BBC was on the receiving end of more than 2,000 complaints from viewers unhappy with what they thought was inaudible dialogue in TV show Jamaica Inn. Grumbling about mumbling became a national sport, and the show shed 2m viewers across its three episodes.

These kind of complaints are often criticised but Griegson says no gripe is too small. ‘You might think this is a bloody trivial thing, but on the other hand if it actually affects millions of people, why not complain about it? Why hold back? You should get things off your chest. If you dare to do the un-British thing and complain, it works.’

And where is the last place to go if you want to make a complaint about a company, according to a man who has spent the best part of three decades doing it? That’s right: the customer service department.

‘You should circumvent the system and go straight to the top, to somebody by name, and not go on the phone,’ said Griegson.

‘Find the name of someone – not necessarily the chief executive or the chairman – why not the marketing director or even the finance director who’s probably got a really boring in-tray – and personalise your complaint. What you really want is a one-to-one dialogue with a real human being who actually cares about the company. The people in the call centres are not the people who have got the power.’

‘Although you may feel angry or upset, it is never appropriate to shout, scream or swear,’ he said. ‘Remember that the person you will be speaking to is often not directly involved, or personally responsible for the problem. They are just doing their job. Make it clear what you want them to do to sort the problem out and then ask for their commitment to do so.’

Hazeldine said that in the age of social media, consumers demand a much more immediate reply to their grievances. ‘Speed is the new need. People now expect a much more rapid – and even instant – response from businesses. It is no longer acceptable to respond the following day – if you do, you will usually find the customer has decided to spend their money with someone else.’

But is there a line between a genuine complaint and an unwarranted sense of entitlement? And if so, have we crossed it?

‘People need to be realistic,’ said Hazeldine. ‘If you have paid for a budget plane ticket or a budget hotel then you should not expect first class travel or five-star luxury.

‘You are entitled to receive the goods and services you paid for. Nothing more, nothing less. Smart companies, however, will find ways that they can exceed customer expectations in creative and cost-effective ways.’

‘If I’m on the M6 and the AA man gets my car going in the driving rain against all odds, I’ll write a letter to the chief executive, name him or her, because that’s a great thing to do as well,’ he said. ‘If you want to improve customer service, let’s compliment as well as complain.’

The people running the companies we often like to moan about are – believe it or not – out to help us. If they weren’t, their businesses would disappear.

‘If you complain in the right way – if you don’t mess around with monkeys and go to the organ-grinder – and you have a one-to-one dialogue, my experience is the people at the top of big reputable companies really do care,’ said Griegson. ‘They do care.’